Portland, Pentecost and London

Apologies for the delay in this particular post, this should of been either Saturday or Sunday. I’ve had a lot to blog about recently… or too much time on my hands, take your pick!

So on Saturday I headed into London to go and see a band called Portland. I encountered them at Spring Harvest this year, thought quite highly of them and then stalked them down on twitter afterwards (twitter.com/PortlandUK) and I got word that they were playing in London and decided to take myself on a day trip to go and hear them again.

What I hadn’t realised is that they were playing as part of the Pentecost Festival organised by Share Jesus International (SJI). The Pentecost Festival a set of events held in central London, churches across London come together under this one banner to put on events in parks, coffee shops, pubs, churches, theatres, etc to celebrate the birth of the church.

The Pentecost is celebrated, by Christians, 50 days after Easter. It was when the Holy Spirit was given to Jesus’ followers after He had returned to Heaven. It is seen to be the birth of the church, as after hearing the message that the apostle Peter delivered, about 3,000 people joined Jesus’ followers and started a fellowship. You can read about it in Acts 2.

Pentecost Festival spanned from Tuesday 26th - 31st May with events throughout climaxing at the weekend with aplethoraof events happening across London; Leicester Square, Westminster, Tottenham Court Road, Covent Garden, Victoria Embankment Gardens, etc.

Portland played really, they did afortyfive minute set which comprised of several tracks off their new album, several off their previous album, a new track and three covers, which made for a widevarietyof tunes all with their relaxedacousticsound. They are so good! The full set list is at the end of the blog!

I spent the rest of the day wandering around London, however that is for the content of another blog. For those wanting to find out more about Portland and listen to samples of their music their MySpace page is very good, it has tracks from both albums. If you wish to buy their album they will have a website up and running shortly (I will put out a blog when it goes up) however it can be purchased for £7.99 from Eden.co.uk. Once I buy it I will be doing a review of it for LouderThanTheMusic.com.

Set List:

• Your Eyes
• Recorded on Pretend to Be Stronger
• Burning Sky
• Recorded on These Broken Hands
• The Letter
• Recorded on These Broken Hands
• If You Want Me To
• New unrecorded song
• Coconut Skins
• Damien Rice Cover
• Carry You
• Recorded on These Broken Hands
• Tonight
• Recorded on These Broken Hands
• Wonderwall
• Oasis Cover
• Nothing Left To Show
• Not the actual track name, however I missed what it was called!
• I Remember It Well
• Damien Rice Cover

Photo’s from the entire day are on my Picasa gallery.